Chapter 28
As always, Gyetoo was the one to begin.
Kko-kko!Kko—!
With a thunderous cry, he spread his wings and rose over the swamp.
A single line cut through the mist.
Sshhhhh—
Beyond the split veil of sight lay black soil.
And upon it, countless heaps of maggots writhed in layers upon layers.
The moment the maggots met the light, they convulsed violently.
Wuuung… waang… karrk…
Sounds of gorging burst forth.
Moths poured out, centipedes swarmed, and spiderwebs spread to cover the air.
As if to say they would pay the price for disturbing the nest.
Their numbers were beyond anything from before.
Geoung.
At Dohyun’s will,
“Geoung!!!”
BOOM—!
The massive body moved.
Even after growing, it stood nearly four meters tall.
In its hand was something less like a club than a pillar.
It was so large one might have believed it had been torn straight from the columns of Daeungjeon Hall at Bulguksa Temple.
And then it came down from above.
Fwaaaaaang—!!
The swamp collapsed… no, it exploded.
Waves rolled outward from the impact, the whole marsh driven back as if by a shockwave.
Moths fell.
Centipedes were crushed.
Spiderwebs melted away.
And yet.
It had not been completely wiped away.
Wriggle—
Something half-burst in the swamp was still alive and moving.
Kiieeeek—!
A giant centipede burst forth.
Three meters long.
Its scale was on a completely different level from anything they had seen so far.
Overwhelming.
So it’s the boss.
While Dohyun was thinking that,
the centipede climbed the length of Geoung’s leg in an instant and latched on.
Snap—
Its fangs sank in.
…They pierced through.
For a moment, Geoung froze.
The blood came late, bursting out after the bite had already landed.
Finish it.
Seeing the wound, Geoung’s face flushed.
“Geoung!!!”
BOOM—!!!
The club drove down without mercy, straight and vertical.
The swamp turned over.
The centipede’s body shattered into pieces.
…Wriggle.
It still didn’t die.
Showing off its filthy, stubborn vitality, the broken halves began to crawl again.
“Geoung!!!”
BOOM—!!
There was nothing left there anymore.
“Geoung! Strong!”
He hoisted the club, stained black with bodily fluid, and roared.
“Geoung, smash!”
Then he charged.
Thud—!
The sound of a blow to the chest.
The goblin leader beat his own chest and shouted.
Kieeek—
It was the signal.
Kieeeeeek!
Kieeeeeek!!
The goblin leader moved first.
The goblins spread out like the ribs of a fan.
Spears rose.
One became two, and two became three.
They sliced through the air and knocked the surviving moths down toward Geoung.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
They fell.
They were stepped on.
They died.
Geoung blasted a path forward like a bulldozer.
The goblins poured through the gap.
Spiderwebs shot in from the side and wrapped around arms.
Centipedes climbed up.
But the goblin warriors were used to it.
With restrained, disciplined movements,
thwack—
Their spears pierced.
Heads burst.
Black fluids sprayed.
The strength of the army shook the swamp as it collapsed.
…Passable.
Dohyun’s gaze settled.
This was not the same army as before.
It wasn’t just that the number of warriors had increased.
Positioning.
Breathing.
Tactics.
There was no disorder.
There wasn’t much for Dohyun to worry about, either.
Behind Geoung, the goblin leader was adjusting their formation.
He drove Geoung forward, while the goblin warriors sealed every opening.
They eliminated anything that interfered.
Good.
Dohyun didn’t need to move.
…Except for one thing.
His eyes shifted.
The mist was not natural.
This had to be a formation, the kind mentioned in human knowledge.
It was no good letting a place full of poisonous fog continue to linger.
The mask was not invincible.
Already, one could see goblin warriors growing short of breath.
It’s inefficient.
This was the time to act.
Mist rose from the dragon’s body.
Srrrk—
His body lifted.
Because of the formation, perhaps.
The connection to the Dungeon was not as smooth as before.
His recovery of spiritual energy was poor.
But.
It doesn’t matter.
One strike was enough.
Dohyun’s body shot upward and became a line.
Whoosh—
Spiritual energy flowed through the air.
He could see it.
Dozens of lines, visible like laws themselves.
They connected, tangled, and looped around one another.
A formation.
The dragon’s eyes flashed.
His claws gleamed.
Snap—
He severed one of them.
RUMBLE—
The ground trembled.
The poisonous fog slowly dispersed.
His sight opened up.
…But.
Dohyun’s eyes narrowed.
The line he had cut rejoined itself as if it had only been temporary.
Srrrk—
Given a little more time, the mist would rise again.
This isn’t simple.
And then he thought,
This… was prepared.
A man-made hatching ground.
There was even a formation supporting its structure.
No insect could have made a formation like this.
Of course, he admitted that he had underestimated formation systems.
He could cut it again.
But there was no need.
Before it could recover, the battlefield was already—
nearing its end.
“Geoung!”
Kieeeeeek!
“Kko-kko… kill.”
The three pressed forward.
What remained now were only the larvae.
Loot.
The larvae merely twitched, as though they knew their fate and had resigned themselves to it.
Goblins. Clean this up.
The hunting goblins began entering the formation.
Kieek—!
Kiiik!
When the spades sank into the swamp,
the soft flesh beneath was ripped open.
The larvae were packed into bags,
and just as they were beginning to tidy up,
Tick—
…
Tick.
Tick.
It stopped.
Dohyun’s gaze froze.
That location was…
not the battlefield.
Not here.
…The Dungeon?
Dohyun turned his head.
The forest.
The entrance to the Dungeon.
The wind blew.
Spring had come, and some time had passed.
The forest was edging toward summer.
In the air were the chirps of insects.
It was an ordinary scene in every respect.
Near the entrance.
Inside the stone watch post,
one orc stood at the window, keeping watch outside.
“…”
On three shifts, they rotated the duty.
When they had more fighting strength, goblin warriors stood guard, but for now it was the orcs’ turn.
The orc inside the post stared out at the forest, then suddenly frowned.
…A mole?
It was a woodland beast often hunted by Geoung.
Deep beneath its feet, the ground trembled faintly.
The orc stepped outside the watch post and set a hand to the earth, trying to check for traces—
Crack—
The ground caved in.
“Wha—”
Before the shout could even finish,
snap—
A centipede’s jaws burst up from below and clamped over its face.
But the orc’s monstrous strength caught it, and it tried to cry out an alert.
“Graaah—cch!”
Then its throat suddenly swelled, and it could no longer breathe.
The orc saw brown dust in its eyes.
From the air above.
Dust rained down.
It recognized that it was some kind of powder, but even so it could not see it.
It was choking.
The orc’s vision blurred.
Too late, it realized.
Poison.
It had already inhaled it.
A nearby goblin saw the scene.
Kieek?
Seeing the orc struggling against the centipede,
the worker goblin beside it rushed over.
The worker goblin that came running also grabbed its throat and lost consciousness.
“…?”
Everything around them faltered for a moment.
“Kii—?”
The goblin near the entrance collapsed as well.
A surprise attack!
The Dungeon interior was not safe, either.
The forest on the first floor had already grown beyond a mere grove.
The herb-farm goblin was tending the fields as usual that day.
Kieeek.
Looking at the expanded medicinal garden,
the herb-farm goblin made a small, pleased sound—then suddenly jumped in alarm.
Something was wrong.
The number of worker goblins around it had dropped.
Swish—
Then.
The body of one goblin vanished into the forest.
It could not be seen.
Kik?
Before it could even wonder what it had just witnessed,
“Kieeeeeeeeeek!”
One goblin who had recently changed from hunter to worker suddenly screamed.
A transparent spider.
That notorious spider bastard.
It had entered the first-floor forest while completely invisible.
“Kieeeek—!!”
The scream spread at once.
Chaos.
The goblins started running.
But where to?
Kieek?
Kakak?
The question was a luxury.
The ground that had been farmland moments ago heaved upward.
Crack—
The earth burst open.
Centipedes came climbing out.
One.
Two.
Three.
They were already inside.
Kik—!
Thwack—
Before it could even finish speaking,
its body was torn apart by a centipede’s scissor-like jaws.
The orcs moved.
“Enemy!! Enemy!!!”
“Where are we supposed to go?”
Not just the entrance, but all over the first floor, they were under attack.
The enemy could not be seen.
One of the orcs lunged at a centipede as soon as it spotted one.
It swung its club.
BOOM—!
One centipede exploded.
But behind its back,
something invisible brushed past.
CRUNCH—
Its shoulder was bitten.
Blood flowed.
“It hurts—!!!”
Shouting, it smashed the spider down.
The spider shattered on the spot.
But.
“I can’t see it.”
The orc didn’t know where to look.
It had to decide quickly.
Shaaaaa—
Powder began rising through the forest like mist.
Its breath grew ragged.
Poison fog.
Kieek-!
A worker goblin ran somewhere to fetch a mask and shoved it onto the orc while clutching at its own throat.
At the sight of that.
The orc’s vision blurred.
And in the brief moment that followed,
the goblin warriors gathered.
They searched for the source of the poison.
Kieeek!
Kiek!
They raised their spears and stabbed at the tops of the trees.
Moths fell.
More than ten warriors moved together as one mass.
They stabbed centipedes and cut through spiderwebs.
They held.
They held.
And yet.
The enemy was hard to see.
A goblin warrior watching the air raised its spear.
“Kiiik…!”
One of them collapsed.
The goblin worker who had been guarding them was falling one after another even now.
The pressure spread in a chain.
An invisible enemy.
There were visible enemies too.
But even breathing had become difficult.
They had to watch not only the ground, but the sky as well.
It was not three directions.
It was everywhere.
The enemy couldn’t be seen.
At this rate, they would collapse.
Then.
“If I’m not here, this is what happens.”
A low voice.
Above the forest.
A black shadow settled down.
A crow.
Heok-o.
Its eyes flashed as it looked down at the Dungeon.
“You there, orc. Fight the way I tell you.”
The orc instinctively obeyed Heok-o when it saw him.
“Upper right.”
At the command, it swung.
The hidden spider dropped.
“Warrior, left side, two trees.”
Thwack! Thwack!
The warrior’s spear flew out.
Moths fell.
“Orc, below you.”
Crack—
A centipede burst out.
The orc, as if it had been waiting, brought its club down.
“Left, behind.”
Thwack—
The spider was revealed.
A spear stabbed through it.
“Now.”
With every command,
the flow changed.
“Kieeeeeek—!!!”
The goblin warriors moved in perfect order, without confusion.
The orcs had no hesitation, either.
Thwack—!
Centipedes were torn apart.
Spiders were exposed.
Moths fell.
All they had to do was follow.
Now,
it was all over.
“Press forward.”
Heok-o narrowed his eyes.
“Finish it.”
From that moment on, it was no longer a battle.
It was a one-sided hunt.
“Heh, dragon. Now you see how hard it is without this great one, don’t you?”
Spreading his wings and boasting, he cawed smugly.
That’s a relief.
From beyond the goblins’ line of sight, Dohyun took in the situation in the Dungeon and let out a short breath.
And then he looked ahead.
The swamp before him had been annihilated.
Everything had been killed and cleared away, and yet the poisonous fog was already beginning to form again.
Formation…
If time passed again, it would become a nest once more.
This repeats.
“Kko-kko… formation master. Need.”
Does he know someone?
“Gwiwolrang-nim, please.”